


Cries in the Attic

by Avice



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Ghosts, Love, M/M, Mushy, Pre-Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avice/pseuds/Avice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange goings on in the attic of 221B - Sherlock is off to a good start in solving the case, but it takes John's special skills to finish the investigation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cries in the Attic

**Author's Note:**

> I really wasn't going to write anything for any competitions, but happened upon the Halloween contest on http://fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic.tumblr.com. 
> 
> I _really_ was not going to write anything, because the deadline was in three days and I didn't have time or ideas. But it just so happened that I started scribbling.

”John,” Sherlock’s voice was coming from somewhere above John. He squinted against the light pointing to his eyes.

“What?” he grumbled and buried his face against the pillow. 

“Get up here, I want your opinion.”

Up here? John turned, opened his eyes properly. To his surprise Sherlock was not standing by his bed. He sat up. As a matter of fact, Sherlock was not even in the room. 

Perplexed John looked up to find that light was seeping through the cracks in the ceiling. Up there. Well, there must be a good reason for Sherlock to be inspecting the attic at, he glanced at the alarm clock, 3:25 am. Not like Sherlock would ever intentionally cause inconvenience to anybody. Least of all John.

“Sherlock, it’s half three. Can’t it wait ‘til morning?”

The ceiling creaked annoyed. John was sure the cracks gave him an impatient glance.

“Fine, fine,” he sighed and put his feet in slippers. 

Honestly, one of these days he would just… _What? Just say no?_ He shook his head. If only it were that easy. For some reason where Sherlock was concerned he had serious trouble using the word. Or sticking to it.

“No, Sherlock, no,” he mouthed as practise as he shuffled to the attic ladder and climbed up. 

“Stop, don’t take another step!”

That was pushing it.  
“For god’s sake, Sherlock! You asked me to come up! Now you tell me not to! What _do_ you want?” John complained hovering between taking the step that would land him on the attic floor and staying on the ladder. 

Sherlock was hanging on to some roof beams with binoculars pointing towards the floor. Somehow he managed to hold on to a torch as well to properly see whatever it was he was looking at. 

“Now, what do you see?” Sherlock asked ignoring John’s infuriation.

John huffed to himself, but as there was no point in trying to fight the inevitable, he turned his attention to the floor.

What did he see? 

“Dust. I see dust, Sherlock. Happy?”

“Make an effort, John,” Sherlock said doing his best to be patient. All this time and John still had to go on stating the obvious.

An effort. Okay. 

John leaned in as close as he could, eyes following the path of light as Sherlock pointed the lamp across the floor.

“All right. Well, it looks like someone’s been up here. Someone with small feet.”

Sherlock hummed his approval.  
“And…?”

More? This really was too much of a mental strain in the middle of the night. No getting out of it though. Best focus to get it over with. So…

“The footprints seem to be starting in the middle of the floor. Whoever it was didn’t use the ladder.”

“Precisely. Very good. Now, you won’t be able to see it, but the prints also finish quite abruptly.”

John waited for further instructions, but Sherlock was once more focused on the floor and had apparently forgotten his existence.

“Can I go now?”

“Hm? What? Oh, yes, sure.”

John started descending the ladder, when Sherlock called after him: “John, wait, there’s one more thing.”

“Yes?” he was half-way down now and waited for Sherlock to climb to his view without touching the floor. The man was agile, no doubt about that. 

“You shouldn’t sleep in your room tonight.”

“No? Why not?”

“Well, we don’t know what or who it is that’s been up here. I don’t… I don’t think it’s safe in your room,” Sherlock said with an uncharacteristic worry in his voice. 

“Safe? How many times have I faced mortal danger with you and _now_ you worry about safe, because of a few footprints in the dust?”

Did Sherlock blush just a little? Hard to tell in the semi-darkness they were in.

“Just sleep in… my room, won’t you?”

“And where will you sleep?”

Was that a gulp John heard?

“The bed is wide enough for two. I see no reason for either of us to suffer the discomfort of the sofa,” Sherlock answered.

Sleeping together? That was quite a safety precaution. 

But the sofa really wasn’t tempting. And it would only be a couple of hours.

John was no stranger to sleeping close to other men, that’s the army for you. But next to Sherlock? Then again, why would that be any different? 

He shrugged and agreed.

Sherlock’s bed had not yet been slept in that night. Carefully John folded the duvet and sat down. 

Why was he nervous? Was he nervous? He had been desperate to get back to bed and now he could. So. Just go for it. 

He put his legs under the covers, lay his head on the pillow staying as close to the edge of the bed as he could. 

Sherlock’s scents were all around him. The faint lemon of his shampoo, the fresh breeze of his deodorant. The musky smell of his sweat ever so faintly set in the otherwise crisp sheets. Nothing that would explain John’s heart rate.

He turned to his side, pointed his nose away from the bed. It must be just the excitement of being woken up, the strange prints in the dust. _Take deep breaths and calm down._

Sherlock took his time coming down, made sure he had registered everything. (Of course he had.) He stood by the bedroom door a minute, looking at the effort John had made in taking up as little room on the bed as possible and the steady rise and fall of his back. Still, he could tell John was not asleep. Only pretending to be. 

Slowly Sherlock walked over to the closet and started undressing. He was well aware that John needed only to open his eyes for a view of his now bare back.

The pale white skin seemed to be glowing in the otherwise dark room. The firmness and muscles only accentuated by the shadows shifting on Sherlock’s body. He was lean, almost too thin, shoulder blades sticking out of his back like little wings. Nevertheless he didn’t look fragile as the deltoid and the triceps brachii flexed in the pale light. 

He shouldn’t be staring. Sherlock must think he was asleep. _Close those eyes, John, you’re being creepy._

John peered through half-closed lids as if that would be more acceptable. When Sherlock dropped his trousers revealing the most perfect arse John had ever seen, he almost whimpered out loud. 

Hold it right there. A perfect arse? On a man? No, John. The most perfect bottom you’ve ever seen this close belonged to a certain female, a brunette named Liza, whose hobbies were yoga and flamenco. That was a round voluptuous behind, not two nearly angular buttocks so tight they reminded him of rocks – diamonds, even. Nothing soft or circular about them. So, no, not the most perfect arse he had ever seen. _Just an arse. A man’s arse._

Lost in these bum musings John forgot he was supposed to be asleep and turned to lie on his back eyes wide open now.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Sherlock asked innocently as he got on the bed dressed in pyjamas. 

“Yeah,” John coughed, “no, it’s okay.”

They lay in silence staring at the ceiling. Several inches between their bodies, but still sensing the warmth of each other, the shifts of the mattress as they breathed.

“What made you go up there?” John broke the silence.

“I heard something.”

“What?”

“A sort of a wailing sound. As if… someone was crying.”

“Really? Odd that I didn’t wake up, when it was right above me.”

“It wasn’t very loud.”

“No? But you heard it all the way down to the sitting room?”

 _Not quite._

But John might not be happy to hear he had been watched. Sherlock had been standing at his door wondering what John dreamt of, what happened in John’s mind when the external clues to it were minimal and the lightning bad. When John’s thoughts were represented only by the movements of the bed linen, the sleepy sighs and mumbles, the occasional smile or even a drowsy laugh. A short chuckle that broke the silence of the night. That, in its rarity, Sherlock had noticed, was most likely to happen after they had had their after-case dinner and spent the evening together on the sofa reading, watching telly or just talking. On nights like that there were never nightmares.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, not bothering to come up with an excuse, trusting that John’s faith in his superior skills of observation would explain away any inconsistencies. 

“Huh. I’ve always believed myself to be a light sleeper,” John said, but continued safely with: “So, what do you think it was?”

Sherlock rolled to his side facing John.

“Something that doesn’t need stairs to go up or come down, disappears without a trace… I haven’t the faintest.”

“A ghost?” John laughed. The lines on his forehead disappeared, eyes shone. He looked younger, carefree. A tad mischievous. 

“Could be,” Sherlock answered thoughtfully.  
He wondered what John had looked like before he had killed anyone. Or saved anyone for that matter. Before the weight of responsibilities, capabilities, knowledge of strength had hung on his shoulders. When he hadn’t known what it was like to hold someone’s life, happiness in his hands. When there had been no one to depend on him. 

But maybe there always had been. Perhaps there was always someone who needed John. It was so easy, so effortless to rely on him. To turn to him for support, for stability. 

“You’re not serious?” John asked incredulous.

“It is one of the things that fit the facts. I do not limit myself with labelling things impossible.”

“You are not in all honesty considering that the spirit of someone dead has been walking in our attic?”

“Of course not. A spirit has no physicality, it cannot walk. There would need to be a bodily presentation of some kind.”

John stared at him stunned.  
“A bodily presentation? I can’t believe this.”  
He had to be dreaming. Sherlock would not be discussing the world beyond the veil otherwise. He closed his eyes. Yes, he was drowsy, tired. Probably asleep. 

“Good night, Sherlock,” John mumbled and, since this was a dream, he didn’t feel the need to stop himself from planting a soft kiss on Sherlock’s forehead.

“Good night, John.” With that Sherlock reached out and put his hand on John’s shoulder. 

A strange dream. 

\---

John woke up a few hours later cuddled next to Sherlock, arms wrapped around him, Sherlock’s palm on his hip. The breath against his neck assuring him that he was indeed awake. Meaning that he possibly had been awake last night when he had kissed Sherlock. 

Had he really? Or had he been possessed by the ghost in the attic? 

Possessed or not, he had to admit it felt nice having Sherlock so close to him. There was something soothing and natural in it. Their bodies had found a comfortable way of fitting, a hip pressing to his thigh, the flank under his hand. 

John untangled himself gently, brushed a strand of dark curls off Sherlock’s cheek. He sighed from his sleep; wouldn’t wake up for hours probably. 

John went upstairs to dress. It was quiet. No one else in the house was up yet. Oddly silent outside as well. As if no one else in the whole city was up. A lonely car passed Baker Street, its sound vanishing into the distance. 

As he bent down to put on his socks, John heard it. A muffled weeping above him, faint, but unmistakable. A child or a woman.

“Hallo? Are you all right?” John cried out and headed for the attic ladder. There was no answer. He hesitated just a second before stepping on the ladder and climbing up.

“Are you all right? Who’s there?” he said, opening the hatch to the attic. As light poured into the musty room, the moaning stopped. 

“Is there someone in here?”  
But it was perfectly quiet again. The dust by the ladder lay as undisturbed as before. No movement in the shadows. 

John decided not to step on the floor. Just in case. There was no sound, nothing to indicate anyone (or anything) was up here needing help, so no reason to have Sherlock in a strop.

Puzzled, but unable to make heads or tails of it, John descended and made himself breakfast. Odd. Hopefully Sherlock would wake up soon and solve the matter. Preferably without involving any creatures from the beyond. A trapped cat maybe?

John was half-way through his second paper when Sherlock slouched to his chair in the sitting room.

“Coffee? The kettle’s just boiled?”

“Please,” Sherlock muttered. 

“I heard it, too, the crying," John said when Sherlock's eyes were fully open after the first sips of coffee.

“When?” Sherlock perked up.

“About an hour and a half ago.”

“And?”

“Nothing much. I went up, but it stopped the minute I opened the hatch.”

“Hope you didn’t disturb the dust.”

“I did not,” John was happy to inform him, “though I do wonder how you could hear it down here last night. It was rather hushed. I wouldn’t have heard it if it hadn’t been so quiet in the house.”

Sherlock pretended not to have heard his final comment. 

“Thought it might be a cat?” John suggested.

“It’s not. I was quite thorough last night.”

“What’s next then? How do we find this ‘ghost’? I’d like to get to my own bed tonight,” he added.

“Go up, have a look at things in the daylight.”

\---

Not that there was much daylight to speak of. The day was grey, rain banging on the roof at steady intervals, wind howling through the attic. If possible, the place was even more unwelcoming than it had been at night. 

Sherlock climbed along the beams again with John lighting the floor best he could.

“Look! There’s more,” John said.

The small feet had shuffled another path among the dust, once again appearing out of nowhere and disappearing into thin air. Sherlock eased himself down carefully and gathered samples from the dust. It was evident now in the better light that the footprints were those of a child. The sole prints could be clearly discerned.

“Should we make sure, search the place?” John suggested with worry in his voice. There could be a lost child in here crying. Couldn’t there?

“Hmph. Sure. If that’ll make you feel better. You won’t find anyone or anything, but go ahead.” 

Sherlock was right. John went over the attic, looked into all of the boxes, searched the nooks and corners, but there was no sign of a lost child apart from the steps in the dust. Defeated he went down. 

He found Sherlock busy on the computer. Busy with both their laptops, the phones, as well as a pile of books to be exact. Not that their library provided very much in the field of paranormal, but Sherlock had pulled out several volumes in physics and the browsers displayed sites on occult and mystical phenomena.

“You’re really looking into the ghost aspect?” John still couldn’t take it seriously.

Sherlock didn’t bother answering such an obvious remark.

“Any progress?”

“Didn’t I just tell you?”

“I was in the attic. Wouldn’t have heard you.”

“Oh. Right. Well. Ghosts choose their haunting grounds on one of two reasons: either the location or the people they need to haunt.”

Apparently the fact that ghosts were real was not going to be discussed and didn’t need to be proved. 

“So we have to find out if there have been any suspicious child deaths in this house,” John proposed.

“Don’t be absurd, it’s an 18th century building. Obviously there have been suspicious child deaths in here. If every kid dying in tragic circumstances would haunt their previous residence most houses in London would be uninhabitable,” Sherlock scoffed. “Not to mention the fact that the haunting has started only now. No, no. It’s us.”

“Us?”

“Yes. Its’ the spirit of a child who wants to communicate with either of us or possibly both.”

John sat down.  
“No, Sherlock. The spirits of children do not communicate with us.”

“I would agree with you if there would not be evidence to the contrary. But there is and we have both witnessed it.”

There was a pause as John tried to take it in.

“Have you ever hurt a child? Or left a child without help?” But Sherlock didn’t wait for John’s answer. “Of course you haven’t. But I couldn’t think of a child who would want to haunt me either. I mean – I don’t suppose anyone would bother haunting just for rudeness, would they?” he asked apparently in all seriousness.

John shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so. But then I do not believe in ghosts, so it’s hard for me to guess their motivation.”

Sherlock shrugged. He would get to it.  
“You should sit upstairs. Close to the attic hatch in case the crying starts again.”

“But weren’t you able to hear it down here as well? I mean, I’d rather sit here than in that draughty landing.”

“Just go up.” 

\---

By the evening Sherlock had formed a theory. It really was quite extraordinary, but it did fit all the information. They would need to test it. For that he needed some supplies.

“Oi! Where are you going?” John shouted after him as he headed for the front door.

“Out.”

“What am I supposed to do while you’re out? I haven’t even had dinner today. Or lunch.”

“Have you heard anything?”

“No.”

“Sit tight. I’ll pick something up when I get back.”

“And when is that? Sherlock! When are you coming back?” But the front door banged shut behind him without an answer and John was left cursing alone.

\---

It had been more difficult than he had expected. Women living alone were not too keen in letting a strange man in after dark. And he probably should have taken John with him. When he had finally tracked down the mother she had turned out to be drunk, mean, uncooperative and rude even by Sherlock’s standards. John would have known how to handle her. But he had got what he wanted in the end.

Sherlock made his way up excited. Time to see if he was right.

“Hush!” John whispered. 

Sherlock stopped. Up in the attic a child was crying. 

He smiled happy. John gave him a nasty look. What? It wasn’t a real child, it wasn’t wrong to be happy because a ghost was distressed, was it?

Oh. The take-out. He had forgotten all about that. 

He grimaced apologetically. John mouthed some carefully selected curses at him. He had obviously made use of the time to think. Pretty long words. 

Nevertheless he helped Sherlock open the hatch to the attic slowly and quietly. The wailing continued. 

Sherlock climbed the ladder cautiously. Only when his head popped up in the attic did it go quiet. With care and caution he placed a worn-out teddy bear on the floor and retreated. 

They closed the hatch and waited. After a while they heard something: a soft giggle of joy. 

Then the crying continued.

“That settles it,” Sherlock said and started for the sitting room.

“Settles what?” John asked coming after him. “Actually, I don’t even care right now. I am starved. I have been sitting on the cold floor all day, trying to listen to a _ghost_ , because you asked me to and you can’t even bring me dinner like you promised.” 

He was opening cupboards in the kitchen hoping against his better judgment that there would be a can of soup or a pot of noodles somewhere. He was pissed off. The hunger only brought a fiercer extra layer to it. 

“I forgot. There’s – ”

“No, do not tell me. I need food before any more ghost stories,” John stopped him short and picked up the phone. “Do _you_ want something?”

Sherlock declined. But John ordered kung pao chicken for him anyway. He could eat it or leave it, but the protruding shoulder blades were still too fresh on John’s mind for him to ignore Sherlock’s eating habits. (In fact he had spent most of the afternoon thinking about the shoulders. And the buttocks. And the arms. Okay, the dark curls as well, without forgetting the hip against his thigh.)

Sherlock nibbled on some of his food, more as a favour to John than out of hunger. It was fascinating how quickly John’s mood always improved with food. Often he cheered up already at the sight of his food, even though the blood sugar levels could not have been elevated yet. Like tonight, coming upstairs with the delivery, he had had a decidedly softened expression.

“Now then,” John was ready to talk, “what are we dealing with? Or should I say who?”

“It’s Moriarty.”

“Moriarty?” John nearly choked on his last bite coughing violently. ”I’ll grant you that he’s dead, but he wasn’t a child when he died.”

“Wasn’t he? I’m not a fan of psychology, but an argument could be made, that something essential of Jim Moriarty did die when he was a child and the grown man was half-dead already, incapable of many, even most, of the nuances of human emotion.”

“But … but… okay, nothing in this case makes sense, but I’m still going to say it: _that_ doesn’t make any sense. Why would he haunt us? Or you? Why not… his parents or something?”

“To simplify a bit, haunting has two main motives: revenge or the need for understanding. In this case I believe it’s the latter. Moriarty’s ghost isn’t malicious. It’s a sad little boy. It plainly wants understanding, maybe even comfort.”

Bloody hell. John couldn’t believe he was discussing this.  
“Okay. Let’s say I believe all that. What then? What are we supposed to understand? How can we comfort him – it, when it disappears every time we try to approach?”

“I have no idea. I got his old teddy. But that was mostly about establishing identity and, as you heard, it didn’t comfort him for long.”

There was only one way about it: more studies into the occult. 

“If it isn’t malicious, can I sleep in my own room again?” John asked.

“No,” Sherlock answered immediately. 

“Why not?”

Because… he would be able to think of a reason. Because…

“Because… we don’t know which of us he wants to communicate with, so we can’t be sure he wouldn’t be malicious towards you.” That was possible. Unlikely, but still.

John was only happy to accept Sherlock’s explanation. Good thing one of them was a quick thinking genius. 

\---

They installed microphones in the attic to monitor the pattern of the cries and quickly established that the crying occurred between 10 pm and midnight to start again at 3 am and continue on to six sometimes even seven in the morning. 

They didn’t want to disturb Jimmy, as they now called the ghost, but tracked down what childhood items of his they could and took them up trying to catch the giggle that often followed when Jimmy found their gifts. 

During the day John and Sherlock maintained their physical distance, their relations as matey as ever. But after turning out the lights they snuggled next to each other. John stroked Sherlock’s face and hair until he fell asleep, admiring the content calm on the detective’s face. Trying to hold his own breathing steady, trying, usually in vain, to tell his penis to behave. When that failed, keeping his hips far enough and hoping (in vain) that Sherlock wouldn’t notice. 

Sherlock had had to change his sleeping pattern for John. He loved falling asleep under John’s caresses. It was inexplicably enjoyable. He usually slept only a few hours and then got up for a while, before, in his turn, gathering John in his arms and letting John’s steady breath lull him back to sleep.

He had also noticed that John had a hard time falling asleep in his bed if he didn’t sleep first. It was as if John needed to make sure everything was alright with Sherlock before he could let himself relax. 

Of course the erection might make relaxing difficult as well. Sherlock did notice it. Every night. He was partly amused by John’s gentlemanly behaviour, hoping he would do something soon, partly nervous what that something would be. Technically he knew, of course. But not in practise. And what with the ghost and a murder here and there, he didn’t have the time to look further into it either. And he didn’t want John catching him looking into it. Besides, for once, he was confident that when the time came, John would know what to do. 

The work with Jimmy was very difficult. The key had to lie somewhere in his childhood. He must have come to Sherlock, because he trusted Sherlock to be able to crack whatever it was that needed solving, but the adult Moriarty had done his best in erasing his past. A surprising amount of Moriarty’s childhood friends had died. All the adults who had been close to him were gone, except for his mother. But the state she was in seemed more of a punishment than an act of love or mercy. Interviewing her was arduous even for John and checking her stories confirmed their suspicions that she was a pathological liar. 

Moriarty’s father had died in a train accident. Or so it had been ruled at the time, when his body parts were found horribly mutilated by the tracks. He was known as a stern man among his acquaintances, but the world they moved in had been one where a man’s personal business was firmly believed personal and his home life had not been inquired into. No one supposed it to be happy. 

Even though he didn’t need to, John still sat by the attic ladder often. He wouldn’t admit to believing in ghosts, but something was crying and he wanted to find a way to help. 

It was another rainy evening, when Sherlock found John sitting high up on the ladder. For the past week he had been gradually getting higher on the steps, sitting patiently and quietly as if assuring Jimmy that he would stay there, that he would not leave, and now the top of his head was in the attic while Jimmy cried. It was amazing. John had won the trust of a ghost. 

They shared a smile. 

Then John spoke softly: “Jimmy. Sherlock will sit next to me. It’s alright. We won’t hurt you.”

Gingerly, holding his breath, Sherlock went up and sat next to John. What he saw in the attic was unbelievable. 

In the midst of the shadows, the dust and the dirt there was a little boy surrounded by luminescence. He was walking slowly across the floor, crying quietly. All alone in the dark.

Sherlock’s heart ached. It was the saddest thing he had seen. He reached out for John, took a hold of his hand and leaned in on him. John put an arm around him. Kissed the top of his head.

The boy turned to them. Saw them now for the first time. They were afraid to move so as not to frighten him. Jimmy stopped crying.

“Jimmy, we want to help you,” John whispered.

Jim smiled shyly. Came towards them.

How did John do it? Make people trust him? How had he been able to bond with this little ghost boy, when Sherlock with all his research and thinking and deducing had got no closer to finding a way to help him?

“John, I love you,” Sherlock sighed in John’s ear. He couldn’t help it. 

Jimmy laughed. All of a sudden he was happy. He took a few dance steps, clapped his hands, looked at them thrilled. Then he waved and all of a sudden – he was gone. 

Only the footprints in the dust remained.

“I love you, too,” John said. Kissed Sherlock properly, on the lips.

“Is he gone?” Sherlock asked.

“He’s gone.”

“But… why? We didn’t help him. What…” For once in his life Sherlock was baffled. 

“He’s dead, Sherlock, he can’t be helped. He came here to help us.”

“I..I…” But Sherlock was not able to say he didn’t understand.

“The thing that died inside Jim Moriarty, when he was a child, was love. He didn’t believe in it anymore. When I talked to his mother… there was no love in her, none in his father. They had denied little Jim of it, they killed it in him. You were the one person he felt for, whatever he could feel. Call it obsession, envy, hate… anyway you meant a lot to him. He came back to make sure you wouldn’t be deprived of love. That you would find it.”

Sherlock was dumb-founded. Love. Hadn’t he…. he had loved John for a long time, but… well… maybe he had denied it. He hadn’t wanted it, because it made things complicated, it was dangerous. It could be used against him. Moriarty himself had used it against him. 

But little Jimmy was right. What did any of that matter now? Sitting next to John. So close. 

“I love you, John,” he repeated. Wanted to hear the words. 

John’s lips on his, hand caressing the back of his neck. Whatever may come, this was worth it.

“Come on, love, it’s late, let’s get to bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I ran out of time and finished the word count before I got to the slash. ;)


End file.
